Black Music Sunday: Celebrate Black Music Month and pioneering LGBTQ+ musicians

The month of June marks two notable celebrations: Black Music Month, also known as African American Music Appreciation Month, which was created by President Jimmy Carter in 1979; and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Pride Month.

From the turn of the 20th century and into the rise of the recording of Black musicians, the chitlin’ circuit, and beyond, there were Black musicians who were openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual. In recent years, the advent of research into LGBTQ+ history has reversed decades of erasure of the Black community, and Black women in particular. We now know much more about the lives of the artists who laid the foundations for so many of today’s popular music genres.   

So let’s kick it off with some of the groundbreaking Black female musical artists who were LGBTQ+. Some will surely be familiar names, while others may be new to you.

”Black Music Sunday” is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 200 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.

PrideIndex interviewed independent filmmaker Robert Phillipson about his work “T’Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: Queer Blues Divas of the 1920s.”

PrideIndex: How did he become interested in this subject matter, women in blues and lesbianism in particular?

Robert Phillipson: You go straight to the point, don’t you! I taught African American literature; I have a degree in Comparative literature and taught on the Harlem Renaissance at the college level in the course of my research I kept running into bits and pieces of biographical information on how Alain Locke was gay or Countee Cullen may have been gay, or Ethel Waters may have been a lesbian and being gay myself I thought there should be something that brought all of this information together. And when I began my career in documentary filmmaking I thought the Harlem Renaissance was the obvious candidate for a film because it was so much more than just literature, it encompassed music, and the conceptual arts. It was a really exciting time so as I started working on my topics and during the course of getting information Blues music came up because that was an area where there was an open discussion of alternative sexualities, although not always positive, at least they were talking about it. Again during the course of my research I found out about Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Ethel Waters and that’s how my film came about.

Here’s the trailer:

Here’s a description of Phillipson’s work by Shoga Films:

Who knew that the most famous blues singers of their day, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, were bisexual? Or that Alberta Hunter and Ethel Waters were lesbians?  Their lovers did, and now you will too.

As part of recapturing our lost and hidden past, "T'Ain't Nobody's Bizness" presents the facts concerning the alternative sexualities of famous blues singers in a way that is unsensational yet entertaining. Many people will be surprised at how developed and robust alternative sexualities were 90 years ago. This documentary is narrated by the well-known Black lesbian poet and novelist, Jewelle Gomez.

Ma Rainey was born on April 26, 1886, and joined the ancestors on Dec. 22, 1939. I covered her history and music in “Black Music Sunday: Meet Ma Rainey, the Mother of the Blues.” Here’s her famous “Prove It On Me Blues,” which includes these lyrics:

I went out last night with a crowd of my friends 

It must've been women, 'cause I don't like no men 

Wear my clothes just like a fan 

Talk to the gals just like any old man

Cause they say I do it, ain't nobody caught me 

Sure got to prove it on me

Bessie Smith was born April 15, 1894, and passed on Sept. 26, 1937. The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture has an exhibit of her music and artifacts.

Elizabeth “Bessie” Smith was the youngest child of seven, born to Laura and William Smith in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her father was a Baptist minister and day laborer and her mother a laundress. In 1900, William Smith died in a work accident and his wife and son Bud passed away in 1906. The six remaining Smith children, including Bessie, were orphaned and left to be raised by an aunt. Living in poverty, Smith began singing as a street performer on Ninth Street, Chattanooga’s center of music and dance, with her guitar-playing brother Andrew. The first published reference of a performance by Smith—when she was only 14 years old—was in the May 8, 1909, issue of the Indianapolis newspaper The Freedman. According to the review of her performance at Atlanta's 81 Theater, Smith captivated her audience through her contralto voice.

Smith refined her vocal style on the Black vaudeville stage. Her brother Clarence was a comedian and dancer in the Moses Stokes Traveling Show. Bessie was hired onto the circuit but shortly after left to join the Mother of the Blues, Ma Rainey, and the Rabbit Foot Minstrels. Smith became a mentee of Ma Rainey, learning how to command an audience and navigate the music business. By the time she was 24 years old, Smith had her own solo acts and was performing throughout the South and East Coast. In 1923, Smith signed with Columbia Records. Her first recording was “Down-hearted Blues,” written by blues singer Alberta Hunter and pianist Lovie Austin. The 1923 song was a major hit and it launched Smith into the national spotlight. Beyond blues, Smith played and recorded with jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet. Her incredible talent led her to become the highest paid Black entertainer of her time.

Here is the only film featuring Smith:

Alberta Hunter was born on April 1, 1895, and died at the age of 89 on Oct. 17, 1984. The National Museum of African American History & Culture tells her story:

Alberta Hunter was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Her father, Charles Hunter, was a Pullman Porter, but she was raised by her single mother Laura Peterson, a maid. Enduring a childhood marked by poverty, Hunter to decided to make a living for herself at a young age. Sometime between the age of 11 and 15, Hunter convinced a teacher to take her to Chicago where she had heard singers could make up to $10 a week.

Arriving in Chicago, Hunter lived with a friend of her mother’s until she found a job peeling potatoes for a boarding house in exchange for $6 a week and room and board. When possible, she would send money to her mother. Determined to become a singer, Hunter dressed in clothing that would make her look older. She successfully captured a singing opportunity in 1911 at Dago Franks, a brothel, with the help of sex workers. People began noticing her talent and in 1914, she was mentored by jazz pianist Tony Jackson. As her reputation grew, so did her opportunities. The Panama Club, a whites only club, hired her as a cabaret singer and dancer. Hunter’s big break came in 1917 when she started singing at the Dreamland Café alongside King Oliver and his band. She signed on to a five-year association with Dreamland, earning $35 a week, and moved her mother to Chicago.

[...]

While living in Chicago, Hunter married Willard Saxby Townsend in 1919, but the two separated months later. Hunter always maintained she and Townsend never consummated the marriage and she did not marry again. She had an on and off again relationship with Lottie Tyler, the niece of comedian Bert Williams. Tyler traveled to Europe with Hunter in the late 1920’s and the two remained close until Tyler’s death. Hunter kept her romantic relationship with Tyler and other women under wraps, never publicly acknowledging she was a lesbian.

Here’s the full one-hour program with Hunter from 1982’s “Jazz At The Smithsonian” series. Her song about being mistreated by a man offers some clues into her attitudes:

Ethel Waters was born on Oct. 31, 1896, and died on Sept. 1, 1977. The National Museum of African American History & Culture writes:

Waters was married three times (her first marriage was at age 13) and had no children. In the early phases of her career, Waters identified as bisexual but never made a public announcement about her sexuality. During the 1920s, she lived with her girlfriend Ethel Williams. Waters enjoyed a large lesbian and gay following, including devoted fan Carl Van Vechten, who took the portraits of Waters found in NMAAHC’s collection.

Here she is singing an early blues tune in 1928:

Lucille Bogan was born on April 1, 1897, and passed on Aug. 10, 1948. She is known for being the most explicit practitioner of “The Dirty Blues.” This short three-minute bio from YouTube channel Their Grey Matter explains:

Jim O’Neal at The Blues Foundation writes:

Lucille Bogan recorded some of the most memorable blues songs of the pre-World War II era, including some that were landmarks in blues and some that continue to sensationalize her reputation decades after her death. She was the first African-American singer to record blues at a session outside of New York or Chicago when she sang at sessions for OKeh Records set up in a warehouse in Atlanta in 1923, and several of her records were later covered or adapted by various artists who preceded her into the Blues Hall of Fame. But by far the predominant association now made with Bogan is the lewdness of two unexpurgated songs she recorded in 1935 that were not intended for public release.

Sexual references were common in blues recording but the proprieties of the day called for them to be disguised in double entendre form. Bogan made a number of those, but presumably, for the entertainment of the recording staff and friends, she used explicit language in “Till the Cows Come Home” and an alternate take of “Shave ’Em Dry” that makes most hardcore rap lyrics seem tame. Though these were “private” recordings, bootleg pressings made their way into circulation and eventually were transferred to legitimate albums in more permissive modern times.

Here’s her “BD Woman Blues,” an abbreviation of the pejorative “bull dyke” or “bull dagger.”

Gladys Bentley was born Aug. 12, 1907, and died on Jan. 18, 1960. Haleema Shah wrote about her for Smithsonian Magazine in “The Great Blues Singer Gladys Bentley Broke All the Rules.”

According to Jim Wilson, author of the book Bulldaggers, Pansies, and Chocolate Babies: Performance, Race, and Sexuality in the Harlem Renaissance, Harlem was also a community that the police turned a blind eye to during the Prohibition Era. People, many of whom were white, seeking entertainment and covert access to alcohol crowded into Harlem nightclubs, speakeasies and parties.

While Harlem was home to African-Americans facing the challenges of the Great Depression, it also became a destination for pleasure-seekers who Wilson says were eager to “let loose of their bourgeois attitudes. . . and experiment both sexually and socially.”

Years before Bentley played midtown nightclubs, she got her musical career started at rent parties, where people in Harlem would cover the costs by charging admission for private parties with alcohol and live performances. “She quickly made a name for herself as somebody who sang ribald songs,” says Wilson. “She would take popular songs of the day and just put the filthiest lyrics possible. She took the songs ‘Sweet Alice Blue Gown’ and ‘Georgia Brown,’ and combined them and it became a song about anal sex.”

Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who was born March 20, 1915, and passed on Oct. 9, 1973, was featured here in “Ladies don't just sing the blues. They play them, too.” While in recent years she has been given her props as one of the founders of rock ‘n’ roll, her sexuality wasn’t often mentioned—but that has changed. Ebony magazine published “The 'Godmother' of Rock & Roll Was a Queer Black Woman” in 2022. MadDyke Mag also wrote about Tharpe:

One of Tharpe’s most iconic recordings, “Strange Things Happening Every Day,” released in 1944, was the first gospel record to cross over and hit no. 2 on the Billboard “race records” chart, which was later renamed the “R&B chart” in 1945. This particular recording is cited as an important predecessor of rock and roll — a genre that white men would go on to pretend they thought of all on their own.

Two years after the release of “Strange Things Happening Every Day,” Tharpe saw Marie Knight and Mahalia Jackson perform live in New York City. She was entranced by Knight, and later tracked her down and asked her to collaborate. For the next decade, the two were lovers and creative partners, recording the song “Up Above My Head” together. Knight remained very close with Tharpe, and even performed at her wedding to Russell Morrison in 1951, which was held in front of 20,000 paying fans at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. (Tharpe played electric guitar from center field in her wedding dress.)

Here’s their duet:

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